THE SWEET BY AND BY.

Thames Star, Volume XIV, Issue 4436, 24 March 1883, Page 2

THE SWEET BY AND BY.

The author of the well known song, "The Sweet By and Bye," S. Fillimore Bennett, of Elkborn, Wis., denies in the Chicago Indicator that he and the composer were drunk when they wrote the words and music of that song, as has been charged. Neither of them were drunk. Bennett was at his place of business when Webster, who was of a nervous and sensitive nature and easily susceptible to depression, came in, in one : of his melancholy moods. " What's the matter now P " asked Bennett. " It's no matter," he answered; " it. will be all right by and bye." " The idea of the hymn came to me like a flash," says Bennett, " and I replied : " The Sweet By and Bye!' Why would not that make a good hymn ?" " Maybe it would," he said indifferently. Turning to the desk, Bennett then wrote the three verses of the hymn. "In the meantime two friends, N. H. Carswell and S. E. Bright, had come in," says Bennett. "I handed the hymn to Mr Webster. As he read it his eyeskindled, and his whole demeanor changed.' Stepping to the desk he began to write the notes in a moment. Presently he requested his violin, and played the melody. In a few moments more he had the notes for the four parts of the chorus jotted down. I think it was not over thirty minutes from the time I took my pen,to write the * words, before the two gentlemen before named, myself and Mr Webster were singing the hymn, in the same form in which it afterward appeared.. While singing it, Mr R. R. Crosby, now a resident of Eiohmond, 111., came in, and^" after listening awhile, with tears in hitv eyes, uttered the prediction: - ' Thai 7: hymn is immortal.' I think it was sung>; in public shortly after, for jritfain twofweeks almost every child on the streets l was singing it." It is translated into several languages and "sang in every land under the sun."